They don't. Arenas set the ticket pricing to cover venue rental, security, emergence services, concessions, additional seating/removal of seating. Not to mention ticket tax on the flat rate to print thousands of them.

Because the chili peppers pull 2-3x more people than that other act in the same venue. That means that they have to have 2-3x more people staffed to control that many more people. Also, the Chili peppers have been a band for over 20 years now. That's a long ass time to stick around in the music industry. Music is their business, why would they not want to be as successful as they can be? Most musicians despite the "fame" they have are not making very much money at all on tours when you take into consideration travel costs, food, lodging.

Really, when you break it down, it does make perfect sense. Most bands are making jack shit off of their albums when they have record deals. The bigger you get, the more people are involved, and the more people who need to be paid. Shows and merch are they chili peppers income, and they don't play shows 5 days a week for 8 hours a day like most 'normal' jobs, so they make their salary (and others who work for them/with them) with fewer hours each day to be earning.

If you read Anthony kiedis's (lead singer) autobiography, he mentions that they adopted a tour schedule some ten years ago of like one month on, two weeks off (or three weeks on, one week off... something like that) for the purpose of giving their tech staff a break from the crazy road life. But they have to keep the staff employed in down time too, so there are fixed periods where they don't pull in profit on tour but are still paying multiple salaries, leading to them really not making much of anything off touring. They do it because they care for their road staff (and want a break themselves, of course) and I'm pretty sure they still follow that schedule.

It's an interesting read. I first read it when I was fifteen, and it was like "Oh man he's a rock star this is the COOLEST THING EVER". And then I skimmed a few chapters a month or so ago and saw how self centered and egotistical he really was for a looooong time. But all in all the take away from the book is he's a decent guy who made some bad choices early on but has had success in spite of that, often due entirely to the love and support of those around him. It's worth a read.

Well they have input to some degree, but they can't drop it down below a certain price point because MANY people's incomes are dependent on these sale prices. They have limited say in the cost, and not really to make it cheaper which is what everyone else is getting pissy about. I don't 'think anyone else is arguing that they don't have the ability to make the tickets more expensive if they wanted to.

Then there will be even more demand. They would have to do more concerts as well. At which point you have to ask whether or not they owe it their fans to spend enough of their time touring so that everyone gets a chance to see them live. I would answer no.

Precisely. Having more expensive tickets if they'll sell out makes economic sense even for the fans. If tickets that could be sold for $200 each are suddenly $20 each, everyone will buy them immediately... and they'll be sold out very very fast. Even if you're not that interested in the band, it's worth it to buy as many as you can as fast as you can, and then (illegally) sell them for a profit.

So the tickets will go to those who get lucky in the first few seconds that the window to buy opens up. The guy who doesn't care much about the band has an equal chance of getting the tickets as their biggest fan in the world.

Having higher prices ensures that only those that it is worth that much to will get the tickets. So if you're a huge fan, you'll be willing to pay more than someone with a passing interest, and the tickets will go to the people who really want to be there... rather than the people who were quickest to buy them.

You might say that since there is a black market, that ends up correcting that problem. That would be true to a point, but aside from being illegal, that is the reason why having higher ticket prices makes sense. That extra money should be going to the artist rather than in the pockets of scalpers. The $$$ will go somewhere.

It's interesting that I happened across this comment, because this exact thing happened to many Dota 2 fans at this year's International. Valve put the (fairly cheap) tickets up online, so many people bought up as many of the (tradable and marketable) tickets they could and began selling them for upwards of 400 USD, IIRC. A lot of people who legitimately wanted to go, or should have been attending due to their status in the community, got shafted by the ridiculous prices people decided to charge.

I'm saving my money up to go to TI4 next year, and I really hope they don't pull this crap again. It's ridiculous that you can plan out where you'll be staying months in advance, only to get screwed over by scalpers in the end.

The thing was he made them so cheap that people were buying a ton of them to sell on stub hub, so the $20 lawnseats still ended up being $80-100. Asshole businessmen or asshole fans, everyone wants to make a quick buck.

It's still up to them. They can insist that their concert prices stay affordable before they sign the deal. Not for the bands starting out but once they're famous they can easily include that as one of the terms of their contracts.

And where is your proof of such? Many artists are signed to produce X amount of albums. Their tours can be equally as binding. RHCP is still a huge act internationally that requires a lot of manpower. I expect their label puts up a lot of the cost expecting to make back a lot of the cost. Do you think kid rock has as much appeal?

I don't think labels produce concerts, at least they don't in my town. It's smaller production companies (compared to music companies), with which the artists could probably negotiate the price of tickets with before signing their contracts.

If the artist wanted to give a free acoustic concert in the middle I'd some public park they could. I live in a small town that gets bands to play in the middle of a closed down main street about once a month. Free shows of folks doing cover tunes. You mean to tell me a band can't find a cheaper venue/ meathod of ticket sales? If a big band really wanted to do something, they could. But it takes effort.

(thoughts turn to Smoochy and his ice capades, keeping true to his ideals.)

depends on who controls the tour. if the artist/s put an independent tour together through their company then they control the ticket price. if their tour is through AEG or Live Nation, then the touring companies control the ticket price. and the ticket price is also determined by the size of the venue and if there are any additional acts plus occasionally the length of the show.

Whoa, whoa, we don't want this to get out of hand. What if all of those kids go home and do something nice for somebody else in their life, after the Chili Peppers do something nice for them? Nobody wants some kind of wave of selfless generosity rippling through society like that.

I always hear about kids hurting themselves over internet messages and I always though they were drama queens. There is no way a normal person can be affected by web PMs. But god damn, i'm getting some pretty fucked up shit on my inbox. From people saying they are going to murder my family to guys telling me how I should kill myself. I can see how an emotionally unstable kid could get carried away. Damn!

I think it kinda sucks they made it a public spectacle though. Should have just given him the tickets and tell him it was from the students instead of shining light on the fact that he couldn't afford them. On the other hand though I'm sure it was good to see his reaction.

When you're older and working, being unable to afford luxuries like tickets to a show is typically not embarrassing. It's more that he's being responsible with his money.
Not being able to afford necessities like food is embarrassing (and sad) and help with that should be discreet.
Lovely picture and story :)

I don't know all the details, since I left it, this is piecing together what I've heard, between rumours and what teachers have told me (it's surprising what they'll tell alumni that they wouldn't have said when you were a student...). From what I know/heard, the class of 2014 got in in the middle of the night, got ahold of a ton of paper towels and toilet paper from the janitors' office/room, threw it all over the school, unbolted the tables in the foyer from the floor and stacked a bunch of them along with desks and chairs from classrooms 10+ feet in the air, spraypainted the chairs in the auditorium with curse words, balloons everywhere, hotboxed the bathrooms, strung bras all over the school. All in the second week of the school year. A teacher caught them and told them all to get the fuck out before he called the cops. Everyone now thinks the class of 2014 are morons, lost a lot of respect for them, and they've lost their winter semi-formal dance. If anymore shit goes down, they won't be getting a graduation/prom either. I'd also be surprised if they get prizes at their grad, since all the money that would have been spent on raffle prizes would have gone towards repairs. (we get prizes at grad here; at mine we had things like tvs, mini fridges, laptops (heh, I won that one :D), concert festival tickets, one year had a car)

Yeah, they're mostly all losers. I've heard some say they're the worst class the school's had in years; funny, since mine last year was called by the principal the "best class they've seen in years". The teachers are desperately hoping we weren't the peak and they all go downhill from here, or they're in for fun... lol.

Basically, their "grad prank" really wasn't a prank at all, just being assholes and destroying a school.

Pretty much. I thought most of my class were a bit immature, but we were fucking angels in comparison, lol. None of our pranks were destructive. Ours were actually really lame and never worked out. (we built a beach; it rained the next day. We strung the school up in yarn; the janitors cut it down before everyone arrived. We threw bouncy balls in the hallways; everyone was stoked on their free bouncy ball for the afternoon).

But yeah the staff are worried, lol. I was in and chatting to a teacher when she pointed to a grade 11 guy being dumb and I had to reassure her that my class were like that in grade 11 and we turned out okay. They're looking at our seniors and going "... the fact that they can all drive cars and can buy alcohol in a year or two is terrifying."

Yeah my graduating class had the highest end of course grades the school had seen in years all four years we were there. But, we were also the worst class in years when it came to suspensions and arrests all four years also. The principal hated our class all year except after exams because of how much trouble we caused.

Our graduation is our version of prom. Which happens at the very end our year, after final exams and shit.

For anyone wondering how that works.. we get dressed up in expensive dresses and suits, go to graduation, accept our diplomas and such, then go to a fancy dinner and dance near the hall we held the ceremony in, then move on to a dry all night afterparty in another building nearby. We wear the formalwear through dinner and change into casual stuff for overnight.

I'll testify to this. I won an Xbox and an electric razor at our grad party. I already had an xbox and had just gotten a PS3 so I said fuck it and give the xbox to a friend of mine some could play online. I was more excited about the razor anyway.

Something similar happened at my school last week. The kids that broke in painted the roof of the school with, "Class of 2014" ( the class of 2009 had done something similar, and the school didn't have the money to fix it, so even though this one is super noticeable it's probably going to be there for a long time). On top of that they made a giant mess of one of the indoor courtyards, hanging up streamers, balloons, paper cups, caution tape, and whatever they could get their hands on. To make it worse, they painted the walls in the washrooms with things like, "Hail Satan", and derogatory remarks about other students.

The worst part is that the people that did it don't even consider it as the "senior prank" that they are going to try and pull off this year. God knows what they'll do with that.

Sounds almost as bad as what the idiots at my school did while I was there. When I was a sophomore I believe, the class ahead of me got into the school, flooded the science hallway, painted the commons area floor with blue paint (not water based mind you), put syrup and busted eggs on all of the door handles and fucked up the freshly waxed gym floor that cost like 2 grand to fix.

We had a janitor at our school who was the nicest guy in the world. His wife ha cancer and couldn't work and he had I think a total of 7 kids. He always wore the same pair of boots and jeans to work everyday and we noticed that his boots were getting pretty worn down so us seniors at our table discreetly asked him his boot size and then went out and we all chipped in to buy him a brand new pair of boots. It made us all feel so good to see the look on his face when we did that. Sadly his wife has passed away but he is still the same energetic goofy old man that we all loved.

Have you even seen Josh play? He's such an amazing musician, the peppers couldn't have ask for a better replacement. He has his own thin going for him, which is amazing and honestly I've only heard comments like this from people who have never really given him a chance.